


oh but she looks like sleep to the freezing

by hypotheticalfanfic



Series: rogue one collex [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Aging, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Retirement, this is not as dark as the tags would imply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: An old woman in a city by the sea.





	oh but she looks like sleep to the freezing

Her hand ached. It was that same one, the left, that long line of finger and bone. Goddess-damned cold getting in, seeping around the cracks. A single winter spent playing smashball andsinging at rowdy parties, one moment of youthful rebellion presaging what was to come, and now she had somehow grown old and her hand ached in the cold and damp. She laid her head back, closed her eyes. Waited. Faces showing back up again didn’t only happen in rooms full of youth and fire, where Padme’s daughter and son had sparked wildly, where grandchildren of men she’d trained spat words with unpredictable results. They came back here, too, in her sleep. Or, rather, in that dozing half-state that had been her version of “sleep” for two decades now. Too many assassination attempts, too many things seen that should not have been seen. Sleep would not be her bedfellow again, not in this lifetime.

Some nights it wasn’t too bad, just watching the Empire pull its people away from the devastation to come, her fellow doomed souls staring at the departing ships as though blaster beams might stop them. Some nights she saw doomed pilot after doomed pilot give a jaunty salute or a saucy wink and leap into the cockpit that would serve as their coffin, over and over, hundreds of times. Those nights were bearable, at least. Others were not.

Sometimes little Jyn Erso appeared, face snarled into a knot of rage and fear, and Mothma heard herself say the words that doomed her. Watched her condemn dozens to their deaths over the objections of people she loved. Sometimes it was Cassian, so beautiful, and that dream was terrible, watching him be smeared with her touch, watching him turn from a bright and clever boy into the husk of a man full only of ice he had become. She saw Leia often, face drawn thin, and Luke, too. Solo and Chewbacca lurked, all their lives braided together by fate and torn apart by her own hands - if not her own hands alone, she had helped and never hesitated. She saw faces of people she’d half forgotten, and only the cold resolve she’d learned at her father’s knee kept her from sobbing out apologies. It seemed worse, somehow, not to know their names.

The worst of the dreams were of Endor. She never spoke of any of her dreams to anyone, not even in quiet moments with her most trusted. Not even to Beleza, not one word. The Endor dreams especially stayed under lock and key, hidden behind a durasteel door in her mind, and those were nights when she swam up out of the bed and stalked the halls, half-hoping an Imperial assassin would leap out from the shadows. At least then she could do something. These days, old enough that her children would have children who could have children of their own (had she borne any children), so little is left for her to do. She withdrew from leadership some years ago, a bad winter sickness coiled in her lungs and the draining of whatever last bit of loyalty she could feel from her subordinates. Some days she regrets it. Others she does not.

“May as well open the windows, Beleza.” Her voice is old, too, goddess above, when had she gotten so old? The slight Pantoran woman bowed, her gold family markings glittering. She reached to pull back thick woolen curtains, let in the weak sunlight. “Will it rain today?”

Beleza shook her head. “No, Chancellor. Not today. The sea is calm, if you would care to look.”

Mothma rose carefully, right hand braced on the walking stick she’d finally given in and had made. “As always, Beleza, I am not the Chancellor any longer.”

“And as always, Chancellor, I don’t care.”

Mothma laughed aloud. “Good to know the world hasn’t changed overnight.” The sea did look calm, blue-green waters lapping at the shore, Chandrila’s one cool sun glinting off the water. “Do we have anything to do today?”

Beleza held two hands out wide, pale blue palms near-translucent in the morning light. “The rug merchant wants to come by, but I already told him you’ve important business in the city.”

“Thank the gods,” Mothma said, settling into the chair Beleza pulled over. “I could not find a way to tell him they were fakes and I wouldn’t buy them.”

“He was so earnest,” Beleza laughed. With a fluid motion Mothma envied, she crouched beside the chair. “How is your hand today, Chancellor?”

“Don’t fuss over it, Bell.” Mothma flexed the hand. “See, it does what is needed.” Her handmaiden snorted, and Mothma tried to change the subject. “Do I in fact have pressing business in the city, or was that purely a ruse?”

Beleza pulled a datapad out of her draped robes. “There is a butterfly exhibition in the Dome, those brown ones they imported from Mygeeto.” At Mothma’s tiny shake of the head, she continued. “A sitar performance tonight at the salon Ras runs, your friend from the arts council?” A tiny nod. “That’s not until after evening meal, though, so we’ll have need of more.” She scrolled through options, discarding immediately any she knew the Chancellor would dislike. “We could see how the community gardens in the Undercity are going, if you’d like.”

Mothma perked up. “Oh, yes. It’s the season for the tintolive to blossom, isn’t it?” At Beleza’s nod, she pushed herself to stand. “Yes, let’s. We can have midday meal after, at that fish place you like so much.” Mothma smiled, the sharp-edged one that meant she was teasing, and strode over to her wardrobe.

Beleza left her to dress, and made calls of her own. “Yes, the Chancellor will be visiting the gardens today. If you could ensure that those working before midday meal are prepared. She hates to surprise people.” No doubt they would interpret that as “stock the field with loyalists,” but Beleza had learned not to try and head off that particular impulse. Besides, the Chancellor would, as she always did, find some dark-eyed child and inspire in them a desire to be tall and robed in white someday. It’s just how things went with the Chancellor.

* * *

The gardens were lovely, always lovely. Mothma took in a deep breath, smelled the damp earth and the very slight hint of rot, and smiled. She turned her head only just to one side, felt Beleza hovering. “They use a committee, rotating, but the current chair is here to greet you. Aster Marrow, he’s half-Pantoran, you’ve met him, three daughters in school.” She slipped two steps behind Mothma and lowered her head, looking for all the world like the loyal servant she was assumed to be. The Chancellor had, once, been a politician, and so was well skilled at pretending to know everyone she met before she even met them. These days her memory was no less sharp on matters of the past, but holding new names and faces grew more difficult each year. They both pretended it didn’t happen, that Beleza’s promptings were her own idea, that Mothma didn’t need the help. It didn’t matter.

“Madame Chancellor,” the man bowed, swept one hat off to wave it in the old custom, “such a wonderful day for your visit. The tintolive blooms have just begun to peek out.”

“Perfect,” she smiled and took his wide hand in her free one. “I had so hoped. Tell me, Aster, how are your daughters? Are all three in school now?”

He puffed up slightly, his only barely blue skin tinting in his cheeks. “Yes, Madame Chancellor, the youngest only just began this season.”

She sighed, walked with him toward the grove of trees. “How time does pass us by. When last we met she was but a child, I believe.” He nodded, grave and commiserating, as they led the way. Beleza hid a grin behind her own headscarf. The Chancellor hadn’t lost a step in some areas. Still more than ready to take anything given and turn it into a shared bond.

Beleza hadn’t known the Chancellor before her retirement, but had immediately liked her when they’d met. Not only the calm and beautiful exterior, nor the obvious brains (and balls) it had taken to drive the Rebellion to victory, but also the smirk the Chancellor wore when no one looked. The way she knew the names and vitals of all the city’s smashball players, although no one had ever caught her watching a game. The way she snorted that first week, when Beleza had jokingly offered to switch places as she had heard the Naboo were prone to do. “Of course, this blue skin would be a problem,” she had reassured the Chancellor, “but paint can do wonders!”

“And what,” the Chancellor had replied drily, “would we do of the meter difference in our heights?”

“Cut off your legs?” Wide-eyed innocence, and the Chancellor had laughed almost to coughing. It had worked, Beleza’s cautious jab at the real person she knew must lurk beneath the smooth white stone of the Chancellor, and that had settled it.

Here and now, though, the Chancellor was solidly in the mode of elder statesperson, and Beleza stuck to the part of her faithful and obedient retainer, and no one really knew of the friendship they shared. There were whispers, once in a while, to the effect that they must be lovers as well. Not cruel whispers, for the people of Chandrila didn’t tend to hold regressive opinions on matters of the heart. Just those that noted how unusual it seemed, for a person of such importance to pluck a no one from nothing and raise her so high. Beleza wore marks on her face tying her not only to the Chancellor but to the Mothma name itself. That kind of reputation - well, if Beleza married, her children would have the same social standing as those of a first-year city official, for starters. It was an unexpected relationship to not include some romantic element (Chandrilans, especially those in the city, seemed to adore class-stratified romance holos), and so the whispers made sense. The Chancellor had famously never married, and Beleza knew herself well enough to know that she was pleasing to the eye.

But there was no truth there. Beleza had offered, once and only once, comfort after a particularly bad night for the Chancellor. Nothing that could have been read as aggressive, but also nothing that could have been misinterpreted. The Chancellor, softly and gently, had kissed her once each on the lips and cheek and forehead and dismissed her. The matter had never come up again, and Beleza did not regret the overture but also did not regret being turned away. She herself had a beau, in a standoffish way, a jewelry maker who had repaired several items for the Chancellor. They traded barbed words when they met, and laughing notes back and forth, and Beleza felt that he would likely make offer soon. The Chancellor had given her blessing, and had asked only that Beleza not marry solely for fear of losing place after — just, after. The markings were meant to ensure her status even once the Chancellor was no more, and Beleza was thankful for them even as she hated the thought of it happening.

After the garden visit, a cart pulled them to the fish place, the one her sister owned, and Beleza heard her sister’s rough voice even before they opened the door. “Bell, get your skor-fin before it stinks up my damn shop!”

“The Chancellor is with me, Io, can you please—“

Her sister’s cheeks darkened so much it hurt to see. “My apologies, Madame Chancellor, I—“

The Chancellor laughed, a real laugh unlike the polite chuckles she’d handed out like candies at the garden. “She’s not wrong, Bell, skor-fin is awful. I do not know how you can eat it.”

Beleza pulled out a chair for the Chancellor, another for herself, and muttered something about the spice rub they used. The taller Pantoran woman, her elder sister Iolanda, bustled around the table, placing plates of steaming fish and savory plant dishes in front of them. “We have some new roots from the garden two streets over, they’re a bit puny but they mash well, Madame Chancellor.”

“I am glad to hear local vendors are buying,” Mothma said as she dipped one tightly rolled leaf into a spicy white dip. “I feared for a time they would refuse, and we’d have to export all this lovely produce.”

“At first, sure, but once the prices got worked out and we saw how easy it was to send someone down the street instead of across to the big market,” Io shrugged. “At least the fish shops this side buy from them. I can’t say for others.”

Beleza swallowed a bite of skor-fin. “Will you sit, Io? Eat something?” The Chancellor nodded, and so Io sat. They chatted for the better part of an hour, the Chancellor mostly listening with a smile, trading pieces of gossip they thought the Chancellor might enjoy. Soon enough, Beleza saw the Chancellor blink for half a second longer than usual. She closed the conversation, bundled the older woman into another cart, and got them back to the Chancellor’s room.

“You always know just what to do, Bell.” The Chancellor settled back onto her pillows. “You’ll do well, once I’m gone. Don’t let them push you around.”

Beleza frowned, tucked thick blankets more tightly around her. “Don’t speak of such things, please, Madame Chancellor. You’ll likely outlive us all.”

“I’ve outlived enough people,” she said, closing her eyes again. “Oh, we missed the sitar performance. I was looking forward to that.” Her voice softened just slightly, and Beleza knew she was beginning to doze.

“I’ll have him come by tomorrow, play in the sunroom. It’ll be better, frankly, fewer people and he can play some subversive old song you’ll like.” The faintest chuckle from the Chancellor. Something seized in Beleza’s heart, and it was as if a river carried her words from her mouth. “It has been an honor and a pleasure, Mon.”

The Chancellor’s eyes opened, sharp and cunning as always, and she smiled. “And for me as well, Beleza.” Then she slowed again, an old woman falling asleep in the sun in her bed. Beleza stayed a few more minutes, watched her thin body rise and fall with thin breath.

* * *

The funeral was a grand affair, but Beleza would not be able to tell her children anything about it other than that it rained. She wore the gold marks of Mothma for the rest of her many days, and her children entered society at a level she could not have dreamed of, and sometimes she thought she heard a chuckle behind her, as though the Chancellor followed. The tintolive trees bloomed each year, and each year Beleza sat below them and cried, just a little, for the old woman who’d saved the galaxy more times than could be counted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Cherry Wine" by Hozier
>
>> Her fight and fury is fiery, oh, but she looks  
> Like sleep to the freezing  
> Sweet and right and merciful, I'm all but washed  
> In the tide of her breathing


End file.
